Posts tagged with "Twitter"

Sarah Baskerville is a civil servant who works for the Department of Transport in London.

Back in November, there was a minor storm in a teacup when the Daily Mail caught Sarah caught posting the shocking revelation to Twitter that she 'Had a hangover' whilst at work. In addition, she occasionally had the temerity to dare to question Government policy.

Unless you are a Daily Mail reader, none of this is very newsworthy. I suspect the vast majority of people with a Twitter account have posted inane drivel along the lines of 'At work. Hungover. Need coffee'.

It's clear from reading her blog that Sarah Baskerville is an intelligent, educated, experienced lady who cares about her job and is passionate about improving things. Why - she even gave up her own time on a Sunday to attend a work related conference so I certainly don't begrudge her tweeting from her workplace. There, but for the grace of God, and all that.

Nor do I really care that she dares to criticise Government policy - I'd rather that than some mindless, faceless drone implementing Government policy unquestioningly - or that she admits she is looking forward to going home after a hard day. Who doesn't ?

What I find interesting about this story is the fact that Sarah Baskerville then proceeded to lodge two complaints with the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) about the Independent on Sunday's (not the Daily Mail) subsequent coverage of a small selection of Sarah's postings on Twitter.

In her complaint, Baskerville claimed that she had a 'reasonable expectation that my [Twitter] messages...would be published only to my followers'.

As someone active in multiple social networks (Baskerville's Web site portal lists a total of 20 social networks), it is simply inconceivable that she didn't know how the Twitter service worked and a Tweet was immediately posted and visible on a public Web site on the Internet.

Baskerville has even written an excellent article about the use of social netwoking tools in Government and how they could be used to engage more openly with the public so she clearly understands how Twitter et al function and how these services disseminate information quickly to a wide audience.

Sarah Baskerville isn't some 16 year old school leaver working in Greggs bakery posting on Facebook that 'Mr. Grimsdyke told me off for being late again. I hate that man' and then being surprised when she subsequently receives a complimentary 'steak bake' together with her P45.

If Sarah Baskerville truly wanted her messages to be visible to her Followers, she could have easily have achieved this using a private Twitter feed but I suspect she simply didn't bother because she thought no-one was listening.

Of course, not many people click through to read the small print when they rush over to sign up on Twitter to follow Jonathan Ross. However, maybe Sarah should take time to read the full version of the Twitter Terms of Service

The Content you submit, post, or display will be able to be viewed by other users of the Services and through third party services and websites (go to the account settings page to control who sees your Content).

The same warning is even summarised in a top tip - 'What you say on Twitter may be viewed all around the world instantly' which, for most people, is exactly the point.

I suspect Sarah Baskerville was fully aware of this possibility but didn't bother as she freely admits she simply didn't expect to be 'targeted' (her words) by the Daily Mail and subsequently by the Independent on Sunday.

The original news story broke in November and it appears Sarah Baskerville still has her job and I sincerely hope she doesn't get dismissed over this episode.

Yesterday, the PCC rejected both of Baskerville's complaints agreeing with the Independent's damning assertion:

The complainant was not, said the newspaper, "someone who for some reason was able to use the technology but unable to realise the consequences of making her life so public.

However, I also suspect Sarah Baskerville lodged her complaint with the PCC in order to prolong her 15 minutes of fame, thinking that she was striking a hammer blow for freedom on behalf of all individual bloggers and workplace tweeters everywhere. Winning her case would result in media coverage, worldwide gratitude and acclaim and somehow make a name for herself.

She certainly succeeded in doing that. The name is 'idiot'.

Anyone suffering from the desire to communicate what they are doing or thinking every minute of the day in fewer than 140 characters is best described as a twat.

Janet Street Porter calling me a 'twat'. Possibly my proudest moment.

I prefer to define µblogging as 'an infinite byte stream of inane drivel' but I also enjoyed Stephen Fry's post on the same subject:

'40% of Twitter is “pointless babble”, which means of course that a full 60% of Twitter discourse is NOT pointless babble, which is disappointing.'

I have tried many times, in many different places, to articluate the idea that micro-blogging reduces ones blogging output but Russell Beattie completely expresses my thoughts on the subject in this brilliant article.

'Tweeting totally takes away that blogging urge from me... Once I tweet about something, it's like it disappears from my mind completely.'

I can completely identify with this statement and another sentence also struck a resounding chord with me:

'Tweets have no archival value of any sort'

I think this is so true. Occasionally, I may dig up an old blog post to refer to. Why sometimes, in a lonely hotel room, I may even just scan my blog archives - just for my own enjoyment.

However, I never, ever revisit any of my inane drivel posted on Twitter, Jaiku or even identi.ca. As I once (apparently) remarked to Michael...

I used to enjoy blogging a lot more and I actually have a couple of humourous blog articles that I am genuinely quite fond - no more than that - proud of.

Twitter is just the ultimate in 'disposable' blogging. All that crap posted from Heathrow T5 just fills my time in. It's hardly earth shattering, is it ? God - I can't remember any of those stupid tweets (apart from the lads in Yellow Lurex suits that was pretty funny) let alone be proud of all those throwaway one-liners.

That's not to say micro-blogging doesn't have a place or isn't valuable, merely that proper, grown up blogging has more value and longevity which makes perfect sense. The more you put in, the more you get out.

Mark Krynsky posted a interesting post on Twitter (sorry, I simply cant bring myself to call them Tweets) inviting readers to share their first ever Twitter post.

Trawling through my own Twitter archives, I noted my first ever post was: 'just signed up. never thought I would' on 9 November 2007 although I had earlier aired my disdain on this blog way back on 12 March 2007.

Perusing the archives of my own continuous stream of inane drivel did unearth the odd gem - well OK then - the occasional notable one-liner in a continuous stream of inane drivel.

• 'giving twitter yet another chance. After all, 3 Oracle bloggers can't be wrong !' - 23 January 2008
• 'The 140 limit is already imposing limits. When I hit it, the text box behaves strangely. You can cut text but DEL and BS don't work. Weird' - 23 January 2008
• 'I see txt spk is an obvious way to save characters but I despise it as I tend to write in English with proper sentence construction and gram' - 23 January 2008
• 'I once saw The Smiths on 3 successive nights in Warwick, Leicester and Coventry. It was the happiest time of my life - marriage, kids excepted. - 23 January 2008
• 'twhirl has search and shortening of URL's - nice' - 24 January 2008
• 'Want twitter id of 'stalker' so emails read 'Stalker is now following you'' - 24 January 2008
• PHP upgraded on Bluehost to 5.2.5 (from 5.1.6) so can use latest Habari. Only PDO mySQL driver no longer installed. Opened ticket with BH - 26 January 2008
• 'Just gave @michaeltwofish several sensible reasons why I won't be going to Habari (yet). Now importing WP blog to perform 'gap analysis' - 11 February 2008
• 'Finished tweaks to Habari Whitespace theme for XHTML compliance. Now fighting obsessive theme porting disorder' - 21 February 2008
• 'I am seriously wondering whether I will ever blog again. I am stuck in this 140 character mode of thinking' - 22 February 2008
• 'Email to colleague: 'Keegan worries me. He seems to have completely lost the passion. He seems a broken man' - 26 February 2008
• 'Is it just me or does everyone think 'Prophylactic' (medicine, condom) whenever they hear about Profilactic (FriendFeed competitor) ?' - 19 March 2008
• 'Disqus is an outsourced commenting system for blogs.Good: one-stop shop for all commenting. Bad: Every single blog needs to adopt:-)' - 25 March 2008
• 'Whoopee Doo ! Today is 'Dress down Friday'. So I am dressed and I am down.' - 28 March 2008
• 'Utd-Villa. Gatecrashing a bikers bday in a dodgy pub in Hull.' - 29 March 2008
• 'Wishing I had continued to use the alias 'RomanTotaleXVII' for longer because it simply was brilliant.' - 31 March 2008
• 'Bemused tourists at T5 gawping at 12 Englishmen dressed from head to toe in yellow lycra - http://tinyurl.com/ypkdgk ' - 31 March 2008
• 'I have uncovered the true meaning of blogging - an innate desire 'to be loved' - 1 April 2008
• 'This writing desk smells of beer. This writing desk smells of beer. You come to me with excuses. You wear me out. R.E.M Country Feedback' - 2 April 2008
• ''I'm not sure all these people understand' Once again, Michael Stipe nails the world's probems in just 8 words. Don't you just feel humble ?' - 2 April 2008
• 'This is why FriendFeed is truly 'disruptive'. It just keeps on probing, nagging away, posing difficult thought-provoking, questions' - 2 April 2008
• '@mathewbutler Accelerate, well it's R.E.M - the upbeat version. Obvious singles 'S-natural S-serious', 'Living Well', usual brilliant lyrics' - 6 April 2008
• '@michaeltwofish Hacienda now has mythical status. When you grew up in Manchester, it was just another music venue (and not even the best)' - 10 April 2008
• 'Just had a fantastic blowjob in men's toilets at LHR T5 - gate A2. The hand dryers in there are absolutely fantastic !' - 14 April 2008
• 'Wondering, if I should pre-decease Michael Stipe, whether my estate could afford R.E.M to attend my funeral and perform 'Country Feedback' - 20 April 2008
• 'Idea dump - Habari branded lingerie. Guaranteed to make $$$, capture large user base and catapult us over WP and Drupal' - 22 April 2008
• 'The prospect of ironing five shirts (in this state of mind) for my jaunt to Berne is not a pleasant one.' - 26 April 2008

London, near England - 23 April 2008. For immediate release.

Brightside Software Enterprises are pleased to announce the immediate availability of FriendOrFoe.

Tired of being followed by those mindless idiots on Twitter, not to mention those horrid spammers ?

Tired of having to search out new friends with similar interests, sense of humour and outlook ?

Tired of being a 'soul in isolation' with 0 (zero) friends in the whole wide world ?

'FriendOrFoe' is a simple Twitter utility that will subject all Twitter 'Follow' requests to lengthy and vigorous inspection using sophisticated algorithms, advanced AI techniques together with analysis of 'social graphs' to categorise the prospective follower as:

• Spammer (Citeh or Liverpool fan filters available soon) - user will be automatically blocked and receive a DM stating 'Don't follow me, follow Jesus'.
• Friend - automatically follow back, sending a DM to the recipient's mobile, changing the ring-tone to U2's 'I will follow'.
• Stalker - automatically followed on Twitter, FriendFeed, Ponce, Jaiku, NetVibes and footage of user streamed on live Webcam, right into your bedsit.
• Anyone, anytime, anywhere (aka 'Promiscuous mode') - all Follow requests are blindly followed with a DM of 'Hey I'm pretty desperate. Fancy a drink ?'

'FriendOrFoe' is freely available now as a set of Greasy scripts written by 1,000 monkeys, bashing away continuously for 8 days, on a Dvorak keyboard.

• Joomla! 1.5 has been released and installed over here.
• Drupal 6 hasnt been released but that didn't stop me upgrading this blog to 6 RC2.
• I never thought I would say this but I think I am starting to get Twitter. Blame Tim Hall.
• FTP - Siebel had an FTP site for exchanging files with customers. Oracle has an FTP site for exchanging files with customers. Unsurprisingly, Oracle are standardising on the latter. I simply can't believe how much time I have wasted spent helping intelligent people crossing this chasm.
• The Europa Hotel in Belfast was the 'most bombed hotel in Europe.'

...won't be hard because I just don't get it.

06:55 Bin day. Dustbins out (from Web)

06:57 Fortnightly recycling day. Grolsch cans and newspapers out (from txt)

07:04 Radio 5 on (from ear)

07:07 Grapefruit juice. Lovely. (from tongue)

07:12 Poltergeist has re-assembled furniture in lounge (from brain)

07:17 Quick shower (from bathroom)

07:25 Twitter about twitter (from recursion)

07:34 Oh no. I feel a cold coming on. Please excuse me from gym (from Mummy)